title: One-year follow-up of dermoscopy education on the ability of medical students to detect skin cancer.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Learning skin cancer detection skills is important, yet many medical schools lack a standardized skin cancer examination (SCE) curriculum.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To determine medical students' skills in discriminating benign from malignant skin lesions on a 10-item image-based test one year after receiving a SCE intervention.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cohort 1 received SCE teaching only. Cohort 2 received SCE teaching with dermoscopy tutorial, and a dermatoscope. The same test was given to assess students post-intervention and one year later.
  
  
  RESULTS
  43% (n = 145) and 38% (n = 143) of cohorts 1 and 2, respectively, participated one year later. Both cohorts improved or maintained their scores to correctly classify all lesions from post-intervention to one-year follow-up. After one year, cohort 2 maintained higher scores for successful identification of both benign and malignant lesions as compared to cohort 1.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Medical students receiving a SCE intervention can improve their diagnostic skills after one year, especially with the aid of dermoscopy.
authors.affiliation: Dermatology Service, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10022, USA.
authors.forename: L L
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: T N
authors.initials: TN
authors.lastname: Liebman
authors.forename: R P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Soriano
authors.forename: S W
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Dusza
authors.forename: A C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Halpern
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Marghoob
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence; D003880:Dermatology / Q000193:education*; D046169:Dermoscopy / Q000193:education*; D055088:Early Detection of Cancer; D004501:Education, Medical; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D020377:Self Efficacy; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*; D013337:Students, Medical